Charden Flamberg
Charden Flamberg '(シャルデン フラムブルグ, ''Sharuden Furamuburugu) is a member of the Apostles of the Stars, and Kyoko Kirisaki's partner. Appearance Normally, Charden wears a top hat and sunglasses, but when he takes them off, he has long, flowing golden locks and bright blue eyes. He wears a black trench coat and black boots. Later, he is seen with his hair tied back in a tight, but still very long ponytail. Noted by Kyoko, his partner, he is very handsome when he takes off his glasses. Personality He wishes to take down Chronos, though he does not agree with Creed's methods, leading him to defect from the group with Kyoko while their castle is being attacked by Cerberus. Out of all of the Apostles, he is the only one that spoke up about Durham's murder at the hands of Creed. Though, he acts stern with her, Charden cares about Kyoko, often watching over her after they left the Apostles. He's calm in almost every situation that he's in, and seems to have some gentleman-like traits to him. He has also been noted to take an interest in horror fiction. Synopsis Manga Charden appears alongside Maro and Kyoko during the confrontation between Creed and his former partner, the main protagonist Train Heartnet, an extremely powerful gunfighter known and feared worldwide as the "Black Cat." Charden is revealed to have taken part in the Apostles' many assassinations and terrorist actions during the previous months. He seems to be a field agent, often tasked to recruit new followers. Charden later goes with Kyoko to Rubeck City, a town where a deranged assassin named Gyanza Rujike uses the power of Tao that the Apostles revealed to terrorize the population. Charden and Kyoko are tasked to recruit Ganzer as he promised in exchange for revealing his power, but Ganzer's power turned him into a barbaric homicidal maniac. If he recognizes the two Apostles of the Star and agrees to listen to them, he refuses to follow them and orders them to get out. Unimpressed, Charden departs stating to an aggravated Kyoko that a madman like him would only be an hindrance for the Apostles of the Star. Charden and Kyoko are ordered by Shiki to remain in town, and Charden later senses Ganzer's ki increasing, as he is fighting against Train and his team. The two Apostles witness the end of the fight and Ganzer's death, before introducing themselves to Train's team. In the following night, as they are waiting in a graveyard for the Apostles' airplane, they meet Belze Rochefort, the Number II of the Chrono Numbers, Chronos' elite brigade, who came to dispose of them. Kyoko and Charden engage a fight against Belze, who is too powerful for them one-on-one but is in serious danger against the two of them. Shiki then interrupts the fight and departs with them. Charden later answers Creed's general call and reunites with the other Apostles on Clarken Island, before the Apostles' large-scale terrorist attack on the World Conference. When Durham is killed by Creed, Charden is the only Apostle who voices an objection. Upon hearing Creed's explanation, he realizes that the demented swordsman only regards his followers as mere tools, and is deeply disturbed by this. He confesses his doubts to Kyoko, who shares his opinion but is more interested in seeing his face without his sunglasses. (Which he remonved in his reflexion.) When the Apostles are based in the ancient castle near Stoke Town, Charden participates in killing the numerous bounty hunters who came after Creed and his 3 billions yen bounty. Maro remarks that Charden seems upset, which Charden dismisses despite Maro being right, as he is still bothered by Durham's case. When the Chrono Numbers V, VII and XI storm into the castle, Maro, Charden and Leon engage a short battle against them, but the Numbers manage to flee. Upon learning that Creed hid his experiences on nanomachines to most of his followers, Charden has enough and takes profit of the chaos caused by the battle against the Chrono Numbers to defect from the Apostles of the Star, followed by Kyoko. Back in Stoke Town, they meet Train and his friends and confess that they defected. Charden also criptically states that he hasn't much time left and that he still wants to destroy Chronos. Later, Charden is attacked by assassins from Chronos, who stand no chance against him and are quickly killed. Charden spares one of them until he tells him where he can find Chronos' supreme elder, whom he intends to kill. The soon-to-be-dead assassin tells him that only a few superiors know about the supreme elder, including the Chrono Number I, Sephiria Arks. Shortly after, Charden asks Train to ensure that Chronos would no longer target Kyoko, and departs to pursue his fight, never to be seen again in the manga. At the very end of the final chapter, Charden is seen coughing blood, implying an illness and following his previous statement about not having much time left. His final fate and the outcome of his personal war against Chronos is never revealed, much to many fan's dismay. Anime In the anime, Charden seems to be more violent and devoted to the cause of the Apostles of the Stars. He and Kyoko still serves as field agents tasked to recruit new members. To do so, they visit several towns following a river and organize a massive break out from a jail, noticing the most promising criminals and offering them Shinkito to reveal their power of Tao, (if they have one) in order to recruit them. Among these criminals figure Igor Planter and Ganzer Lejick. Charden appears while Rinslet searches for the spirit water. Wearing his top-hat and traveling with Kyoko, Charden gives the drink to several criminals, resulting in most of them dying. The ones that lived were supposed to join them, and if they didnt, Charden would kill them. Later, Train tracks them down and Charden casually mentions Creed. Train demands that Charden tell him where Creed is, and Charden tells him, as per Creed's request. However, when Train and Creed meet and fight, Charden and Echidna intervene, causing a squabble among the Apostles. Durham, who had been acting on his own, was later killed by Creed, causing Charden to leave out of protest. However, Charden didnt give up on the views of an Apostle and attempted to kill Sephiria in order to destroy Chronos. However, this failed and Train had to intervene in order to save him. Charden reappears shortly before the battle against "Eden" and the Zero Numbers, alongside Kyoko. No one knows how he learned about the threat but he might have sensed the strong concentration of Tao or more simply have been warned by Kyoko. The two then join the heroes, the sweepers and the remaining Chrono Numbers. Charden no longer wears his glasses or his silk top hat, and he confesses that he reflected about what would be his purpose in life after abandoning his goal of destroying Chronos, (which ironically has been destroyed by the Zero Numbers) and that his research lead him here. Charden takes part in the invasion of "Eden" and is later seen departing, finally in peace with himself. Skills '''Blood: Charden's power of Tao is called "Blood" and likely comes from his liking for horror fictions. He is able to control his own blood like a limb and he can shape and manipulate it as he pleases. He uses it to create blood figures, usually shaped like skeletons, skulls or Grim Reapers, which he uses to attack his enemies with claws or a scythe, depending on the form it takes. He can also creates blood replicas of himself, through which he is able to see and talk, or streams of blood with which he binds his enemies, often squeezing them to death. Charden can turn his blood into acid, which he does when performing his "Bloody Rain" technique. (Countless drops of acidic blood which he hurls in every direction and is very hard to dodge, even for a Chrono Number.) He can also make his blood figures go underground to form a network of bloody Grim Reapers that surrounds his enemies and attack them from every side. Charden is a highly powerful warrior with a truly dreadful power, but using this power doesn't come in handy, as he needs to cut himself to activate it, and cannot use it as freely as the other Apostles. Moreover, Charden cannot use his blood when it is not linked to his body. To compensate this, Charden can absorb his victims' blood through his own, which means that when he strikes his enemies, they are already as good as dead. Also, because of all the blood he has assimilated, Charden has an amount of blood way over the usual quantity at his disposal, making his "ammunitions" close to limitless, and rendering him very hard to kill through blood loss. Because of this, it is very likely that wounding Charden would only increase his access to his weapon. In the manga, shooting the blood figures with a gun is useless, while in the anime, Train Heartnet often destroys them with a single bullet. Finally, Charden appears to be the most able (or at least the most trained) to feel other peoples' ki among the Apostles of the Star, enabling him to locate anyone in a defined perimeter and to sense whenever someone is using a power of Tao around. Bloody Rain: Charden can manipulate blood to perform attacks. It normally takes the form of several skulls that can slice through objects upon impact, but are easily destroyed. Gallery Charden; Rose.jpg Charden; Plane.jpg Charden; insect.jpg Charden.jpg Charden's Blood Power.jpg Charden d.jpg Charden; insect.jpg Charden; Blood.jpg Charden Flamberg.png Navigation References Category:Characters Category:Apostle Category:Male Category:Sweeper allies Category:Living